Baker and Jones Ch. 05

Annette sits up in her bed and resigns herself to the fact that sleep would evade her attempts if she remained here. There were too many ingrained habits in her mind that pushed her nighttime hours towards incessant rumination of her guilt, so she may as well remain awake until she could no longer keep herself so. She slips out of her bed and removes her nightgown, trading it for a buttoned shirt and casual dress that didn't contain an indecent stain.

She slowly creeps downstairs and sets the kettle on the burner for herself, resolving to watch it carefully and remove it before its whistling grows loud enough to threaten Cordelia's rest. However, as she quietly pours herself a warm cup of tea a few minutes later, it seems the concern was unnecessary. Cordelia strolls into the nearby dining room, furrowing her brow as she notices Annette awake so late.

"Miss Baker," she steps forward, "It's nearly eleven o' clock. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Should you not be sleeping as well?" Annette smiles politely in response. "Unless you have suddenly developed nocturnal abilities and failed to notify me in the change of your daily schedule."

Cordelia pauses, eyes flicking over the servant with mild suspicion. "My business is my own. You should be asleep."

"I will once able. My mind contains too many thoughts to do so."

"Am I supposed to ask whyever for?"

"Not unless Miss Jones is particularly captivated by the inner workings of her servant," Annette jokes, hoping it'll discourage her from prying further. She'd rather not explain the incriminating guilt of lesbianism. "Might I enquire instead as to your destination? You're quite well-dressed for eleven o'clock."

Cordelia pauses, glancing down at her button-up, slacks, and suspenders. "No."

"Should I at least prepare another dressing for your wounds upon your return?"

"You think I'm off to box?"

"I'm sure Conrad or Quickens or Travor aren't going to best themselves," she smirks, taking a long sip of her tea and savoring the warmth. "It's raining, you should take an umbrella."

"I'll take an umbrella if I so please to do so, Miss Baker," Cordelia frowns, "not under the orders of a collar after hours."

"It will make care of your laundry easier for me, Miss Jones," Annette rebuts.

"Perhaps I wish to make it more difficult."

Annette feels a bubbling pride push forth inside of her chest and she grins. "Then I shall have less capacity for detective work, Miss Jones. Unless you'd like to take up cooking for yourself as a hobby to alleviate my domestic burden?"

Cordelia scowls and tilts her head incredulously. "I daresay you're far bolder with your words past sunset, Miss Baker. I don't envy any future husband of yours."

"Nor do I," Annette utters in a low voice, hiding behind another sip of tea. "Would you appreciate something to eat before you depart? I can prepare something, if you like-,"

"Not necessary," Cordelia waves her away. "I'll take my leave now, Miss Baker, lest I run the risk of invoking further scorn from my collar."

"Somewhere across Bellchester, I'm quite sure Penny just smiled with satisfaction."

"Good night," Cordelia chips bluntly.

"And how long might you be gone?"

"A while."

"Which could be enumerated as...?"

Cordelia huffs. "At least a few hours, Miss Baker. Good night."

She turns and marches away from Annette, pulling her coat from the rack and slamming the front door behind her. Annette quietly smirks to herself, hearing the sound of Cordelia removing an umbrella from its place beside the front door as she departs. She turns about the kitchen, pondering what she could do to occupy herself whilst waiting for sleep to finally greet her.

Eventually Annette decides the nighttime hour may as well be productive, so she strolls into the dining room and pulls out the various case files they've collected regarding Henry's death and Bembrook's murder. She flips through the pages aimlessly, simply attempting to get a sense for why Cordelia had recovered these particular documents. For the past two days since Bembrook's killing they have poured over the papers, struggling to determine if they could establish any sort of paper trail that might lead to a suspect. Annette doubts they'll be successful, but now that a crown investigator has taken over the official case there isn't much else they can do.

She flips through expense reports, personal correspondence, stray business papers... nothing particularly interesting or captivating. Bembrook was surprisingly meticulous with her personal finances and apparently had little shame; he logged every visit to a brothel in the last year, most of them to Elenore's Gallery. Apparently he was quite the regular, and Annette shudders with sympathy for the workers there.

Otherwise, business at Bembrook Rail & Steam appears fairly straightforward. He owned a significant amount of the rail infrastructure in Bellchester and the surrounding county; enough so that he was wealthy by local standards, yet still a fairly small fish in the business of the entire country. For all of his greed and vice, his company practices are fairly standard from what Annette can deduce.

After a few passes, she eventually notices a letter sent to Mister Bembrook from Mary Rosen herself, seemingly sent a day after Henry's death. It reads:

Dear Mister Bembrook,

I hold no hate in my heart. I never could stomach it. My mother and my mother's mother always taught me to refuse corrupting myself with an emotion such as that. But I cannot imagine you are above hatred. Henry was a good man and a good worker. You could survey a thousand men and not find any who could compete with his integrity and skill. But you, Mister Bembrook, never listened to him or his concerns, regardless of whether or not they would improve your business. You must have hated him.

My family would want me to petition your kindness to assist us in our mourning. Are you even aware of what it costs to bury your oldest son? Have you so exported your compassion that you could never relate to a pain like this? We have no body to bury and I'm forced to begin my mourning already. I'll ask no kindness of you. I don't suspect you have any to give. Does a fowl ask kindness of its hunter?

Instead, I will pray unceasingly that you meet an unfortunate ending that is befitting of the suffering your hands produce. In many ways I hope you believe there is a God above. I hope you live in fear of what that God will do to you for your sins. I hope you spend every waking moment running from his inevitable judgment, and that every dream you have is a nightmare. You deserve no rest, no recovery, no peace.

Mary Rosen

Annette's heart breaks softly reading the letter. Mary's handwriting is rough and tense and Annette can feel her raw emotion in every spot of ink. Her hands were clearly shaking while she wrote and she must've been crying. She allows a grim smile to creep onto her lips, amazed that Mary's prayers seem to have come true - Bembrook's death was quite fitting for all of the harm he had done.

But as Annette turns the letter over, she's surprised to find another letter sticking to the back of it. A tear stain on Mary's letter seems to have smudged the ink of the letter behind it, fastening the two together with a weak seal. Annette gently pulls them apart, gazing at the newfound correspondence with a curious intention.

Bembrook,

I know what you have done. I've seen the maps and I have spoken with the governor. To imagine that you fancy yourself rising above your pitiful station fills me with an incandescent rage, most especially that you have done so in such a manner that your attempted ascension must come at my expense. Trenchton Hall belongs to my family and my family alone, not some kniving, gruesome bastard with a locomotive and audacious personhood.

You are not, and never will be, gentry. You will never be accepted. In your last letter, which seemed as though penned by an adolescent schoolboy, you suggested I might meet you at dawn to decide the fate of the property. Never have I been graced with such a humorous laugh with my colleagues as when I read these words aloud to the room. You are not worthy of receiving a bullet from my gun. You are not worthy of the opportunity to bleed at my hand. The fates of lecherous bastards such as yourself are best exported to some common criminal, who might run you through with a rusted knife in a back alley.

I look forward to returning to the governor this afternoon and once again appealing my case, whereby you might witness what tools exist at the disposal of gentlemen such as myself. Bring a lawyer, bring an army, you will never receive a single acre of my property so long as I live and breathe upon thi-

The letter ends abruptly at the page turn, and it appears as though the second page is missing. Annette shuffles back through the papers they've gathered, scrambling to locate the reminder of the letter, only to conclude that it isn't here. She sits at the table in frustration, reading the first page over and over again while something tickles in the back of her mind.

Annette can't explain it. She feels a stirring in her gut. The second page is the key, it must be, and her mind buzzes with possibilities. Bembrook was a clearly hated man by an unknown number of parties, but what if she and Cordelia were misguided into believing that disgruntled workers would be responsible? She ponders every interaction she's had with the world of nobility, through Samantha, through Lady Wilva, through the scattered moments at St. Bartholomew's... they played by a different set of rules and they were fiercely possessive. It sounds as though the author of this letter was concerned Bembrook was somehow muscling into his property, and now Bembrook was dead.

She rubs a palm against her face and glances at the staircase. It wasn't likely that the second page could be upstairs in Cordelia's study. She'd been surprisingly content to work in the dining room. And the first page had been accidentally hidden because of Mary Rosen's letter, so it's possible Cordelia hadn't noticed it at all.

She scrambles to remember which family might own Trenchton Hall and the surrounding land and comes up blank. Samantha would likely know, but Annette quickly shies away from the suggestion. Thinking about her longingly in bed was one thing. Tonight, the dreadful weight of Annette's guilt quashes any possibility she would risk seeing her again. Besides, it wasn't enough to simply know the family. She'd need to know the specific member of the family.

Her heart plummets at a pair of twin revelations. First, that the second page could possibly be in the hands of the crown investigators already. Second, that the crown's investigators would be paid by the nobility, and as a result, would not be likely to prosecute a gentleman who was responsible. If Annette and Cordelia were to solve this, they needed the rest of that letter; which might only be in Bembrook's office for a little while longer, if it was there at all anymore.

Annette sighs, contemplating the unnerving plan taking hold inside of her. This was their only chance to find the answers, and it might slip away and leave them behind. Cordelia would be gone for a few hours and will likely be drunk by the time she returns, hardly in any state to poke around a crime scene carefully. Annette takes a breath, wondering if she really had the stomach to attempt to recover it so late at night, right out from under the crown's nose.

It would be dark, and she knew her way around the streets well. She'd be able to hide from the police for the most part. But... then again, a collar and a dress was sure to attract unwanted attention so late at night. She glances up the staircase once more, dreading the plan that she was crafting. She'd need pants and a shirt, something that would be far less conspicuous than her current attire, and at this hour, there was only one place to get them.

Annette had only been on the third floor of 167th Mill Street for a few minutes at a time, and usually just to knock on Cordelia's door to wake her, bring her dinner, or deliver her laundry. It's a smaller space than the rest of the house, featuring only a narrow hallway and the wide doors of her study, which had a side room attached that Cordelia used as her bedroom. Annette walks quietly on the hardwood as though her owner might actually somehow sense her, tensing all of her muscles with each step. She holds her breath at the double doors, steeling her courage before carefully sliding one open and creeping inside of the dark room.

Rather than risking a light being seen from outside the house, Annette waits for a few moments to allow her eyes time to adjust. Once they finally do, she stumbles forward, only making out the vague shapes of a heavy desk, bookshelves, and piles of scattered items on the floor. She steps carefully towards the side room, hearing her heart pound in her chest with each trembling movement.

While she'd never been in Cordelia's bedroom itself, Annette is lucky to find the closet quickly, its sliding doors just to the left of the entryway. She unlatches the handle and hastily retrieves a pair of slacks, a vest that she hopes would match it, and a hat that seemed to be a complimentary color. She throws the door closed and races out of the room, descending down the stairs towards her own bedroom with her stolen outfit.

Cordelia is a little taller than Annette, and has hips that fill out more than her own, so the pants are a loose fit. She cuffs the legs up a few inches and uses a pin to keep them in place, tightening her belt at the waist and hoping it would fit well enough. She keeps her own collared shirt on, throwing the borrowed vest over it and buttoning it all the way to the top. She stares into her small mirror, seeing her leather collar peak out through the fabric, circling her neck and declaring her servitude. With a nervous pit in her stomach, she closes the final button, using the collar of the shirt to hide the leather band underneath. It's a little tight around her neck, but it'll keep her from being spotted as a runaway servant.

She stares in the mirror for a moment and marvels at the outfit, surprised to find it feels so homely on her. It doesn't quite fit, a little baggy in places and awkward in others, but there's something deeply satisfying about the way the pants hug her hips. The vest accents her chest and waist well, too. Pullwater had been so constantly insistent that Annette only wore dresses that it feels alien to once again don trousers and a shirt alone. It's liberating.

Annette smiles in the mirror and pulls her hair up into a tight bun. She adds the hat she recovered to the assemblage, maneuvering it in such a way that it obscures the presence of long hair. It's a strange feeling, seeing herself like this. She'd always been pretty and feminine, and for the most part she liked it. But in Cordelia's clothes she feels powerful and comfortable. With a large coat over her outfit she wouldn't immediately draw the attention of the men around her, and only her smooth face would give away her womanhood.

She grabs her boots and umbrella and strolls out of the house with an unexpected amount of satisfaction. The suit fills the void in her confidence that her plan leaves, bandaging her nerves and giving a much needed boost to her resolve. This will work, she tells herself, and actually believes it.

It's easy enough to weave her way through the night time streets to the railyard, and she moves with an extra security she didn't often feel. When she looks over her shoulders for potential followers, it is for a reason other than personal safety; and after years and years of gruesome stares from men on the streets she finds the experience refreshing. She walks with her chin up, only ducking into the shadows when spotting an officer on patrol. Each step in her boots, lightly slashing in the puddles between cobblestones, gives her a sense of invulnerability.

At the railyard she finds a comfortable place to hide and watches for a few minutes, trying to get a sense for the level of patrol tonight. It isn't unusual for the police to keep watch of the area to prevent stowaways on trains, but they mostly did so by occasional shows of force. If you were careful, quiet, and not a fool, it wasn't impossible to slip between patrols and make your way through the yard. Tonight is no different, and it only takes a short while for Annette to find her moment, closing the umbrella and darting out from her place in the shadows.

Inside the yard there is significantly less presence. She hardly sees anyone as she slips between train cars and towards Bembrook's office in the center. However, her plan meets its first resistance as she comes into view of the central building: a duo of officers guard the front entrance on the ground floor. One of them is smoking, standing out on the platform, while the other leans up against the wall. They're chatting casually, clearly without much concern for the possibility of a break in tonight.

Annette scours the area, trying to see if she can work out a secondary entrance. She circles the entire building and doesn't locate a single backdoor, frustratedly making her way back to the front and attempting to strategize. The rain might obscure her from a distance, and the pattering of drops on the metal machines does help to disguise the noise of her movements, but that would do little good once she made her way closer.

For a moment, she considers attempting to make a loud noise somewhere farther away and hope to draw them out. Then while they're distracted, she could attempt to slip inside. But, she quickly abandons that plan. First, there was no telling that both or either of them would investigate, and it might actually draw the attention of some other patrol nearby. Second, that was only a way in; Annette would still need an escape plan.

She recalls the layout of Bembrook's office and drafts a plan that feels even worse. The first floor was a typical factory setting for mechanics and general laborers, but there was a small staircase up to the second floor where Bembrook's office was. She'd assumed the stairs were the only way up, but then again, the door to his office wasn't the only way to get inside. His office also had a balcony.

Annette skirts around the left side of the building and locates it from the ground. There's no ladder or rope or anything, and she wasn't expecting there to be one. However, a track runs directly alongside the building, and with a train car on those tracks she might be able to leap up to it. She would have to hope that the balcony door was unlocked.

She's just about to start climbing the nearest car when a noise startles her from the front entrance. Annette ducks back into the shadows, ignoring the rain pouring down from above and resolving to find a way to properly dry out the clothes once she returns; with luck, her coat will bear the brunt of it. A light pours out from across the yard and a man steps out from the front door. Annette doesn't recognize him, but from the way that he stops to chat with the officers, she suspects he must be the investigator from the case. She breathes out a sigh of relief that she had waited to scope out the balcony; had she attempted her first plan, she would likely run directly into him.

She waits longer for him to clear the area, which takes a long time. He shares a cigarette with the police officers, laughing and talking for what feels like a quarter hour. But he does eventually leave, and once Annette determines he isn't heading her direction she returns to the task at hand. There weren't any cars directly aligned with the balcony, but there were a few close enough to risk an attempt. She scrambles up a ladder on the side of one, gripping each rung as tightly as possible to avoid slipping in the rain. Her hands are freezing and she wishes she had brought gloves.